Hack Ink
Reflections
Pages J
November 26
Atlanta, which served as SNCC’s original
headquarters. Diane Nash, a Fisk student,
dropped out of college to become SNCC’s
first field secretary. Cleveland Sellers, a
Howard University student, became pro
gram director for SNCC. Stokely
Carmichael, a Howard philosophy student,
became one of SNCC’s most important
field secretaries. Carmichael, who would
later serve as a SNCC chairman, became
good friends with Sellers. Bob Moses
(Robert Parrish), a Harvard graduate and a
math teacher, served as a philosophical and
spiritual leader for SNCC. Moses directed
SNCC’s field staff in Mississippi. These
leaders represent only a few of the many
persons involved with the Student Nonvio
lent Coordinating Committee. The names
of all the people who helped this organiza
tion move are not known. However, SNCC
leaders and field secretaries gave direction
and power to the struggle for black equality.
In comparing the work of SNCC to other
civil rights organizations, one must take
economics into consideration. SNCC was a
new organization run mainly by students,
and students had no money. Several people,
who quit their jobs to work for SNCC full
time, found it difficult to survive. SNCC
members worked hard for littie or no com
pensation. Most of the time SNCC workers
only received around 10 to 20 dollars a
week for their work; Ten or twenty dollars
to quit school and risk your life for a cause.
In his autobiography T^e Making of Black
Revolutionaries. Jim Forman said SNCC
had the largest field staff of any organiza
tion from 1961-62, but the least amount of
money. SNCC did not develop an official
fundraising campaign because its members
did not want money to become its main
concern. SNCC criticized other civil rights
organizations for being too money-oriented
and bureaucratic. Consequently, SNCC
survived with no money and didn’t know
where to get any. Several SNCC organizers
tried to raise funds in the North, which did
help the organization somewhat However,
the majority of the time SNCC operated in
the red with no money to pay office utility
bills or support its field staff. It is ironic how
economic oppression allowed the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to
become rich in spirit and inspiration.
SNCC’s campaigns involved a combi
nation of nonviolent direct action and voter
registration. Most of the time, SNCC would
go into a city to register votes and end up
participating in demonstration. SNCC be
lieved in the power of the franchise to uplift
black people. SNCC felt if blacks were able
to vote, then all of the other civil rights
would follow. Blacks had been denied the
franchise blatantly in several parts of the
Deep South, such as Georgia, Alabama and
Mississippi. White supremacists in Deep
Southern states had been notorious for their
oven mistreatment, violence and murder of
African-American citizens. White Citizens
Councils, watered-down versions of the
Klan, also became obstacles in the paths of
SNCC organizers. SNCC also had to deal
with extremely poor black people, many of
whom were illiterate. Blacks who couldn’t
read or write had no chance of voting under
Jim Crow because of the literacy test given
by registrars.
SNCC also had to convince black people
in these towns of the importance of the
ballot. Economically-oppressed people
have a difficult time understanding why
they should vote, if they have no food on
the table. Why should you risk your life
registering to vote, if you have no job or a
descent roof over your head? What good is
a ballot if you can’t read what’s on the
ballot? SNCC workers organized freedom
schools to educate blacks on the impor
tance of the franchise. Freedom schools or
“Nonviolent Highs” also help educate stu
dents, if they were expelled from school for
participation in protest. SNCC field secre
tary Dion Diamond helped organize a free
dom school in Mississippi’s Pike County.
SNCC field secretaries were sent into
the most dangerous areas of the Deep South
to organize voter registration drives. Long
before other civil rights organizations
thought about mobilizing people, SNCC
was there. During Freedom Summer of
1964, SNCC joined forces with thousands
of white students from Northern white col
leges to register a record number of black
voters. In addition to Freedom Summer,
field secretaries could be found in a number
of other southern cities.
It is sad that no one remembers their
names. Ivanhoe Donaldson, Anne Moody,
Charles McClaurin, Courtland Cox. They
were young and brave. Kathy Conwell,
Don Harris, Sam Block, Luvaughn Brown.
Some of them died for the franchise. Jimmy
Lee Jackson, Sammy Younge, Jimmy
Travis. And nobody knows their names.
Although SNCC went wherever needed,
the field staff felt that Mississippi was very
important to address. Mississippi had his
torically denied black people the franchise.
In McComb, Miss., 200 out of 8,000 eli
gible blacks were registered to vote. In
neighboring Amite County, only one black
eligible voter was registered out of nearly
5,000blackpeople. In Walthall County, no
blacks were registered to vote, even though
it had3,000blacks age21 and older. These
statistics showed that something was defi
nitely wrong. Almost the entire SNCC field
secretary staff became involved in the voter
registration drive in Mississippi. Bob Moses
and Travis Britt helped lead the campaign
in McComb, which had a reputation for
being Klan country. SNCC got local high
school students to protest segregation in
McComb’s public accommodations. Sev
eral peopte were arrested for trying to reg
ister to vote. Travis Britt was beaten and
threatened throughout the drive. Another
voter registration drive was started by field
secretary John Hardy in Walthall County.
Hardy was beaten when he attempted to
take voters to the registrar’s office. In addi
tion, Herbert Lee, an NAACP organizer,
and Lewis Allen, a local resident, were
killed in McComb, MS. Dozens of people
were arrested for trying to register to vote
and participate in nonviolent protest S NCC
also took its voter regisU'ation campaign
into other southern cities such as Birming
ham, AL and Albany, GA. Desegregation
in these two cities is often scene as the work
of SCLC, but SNCC was first. And al
though SNCC was beaten and brutalized,
they kept their eyes on the prize.
Some SNCC members grew wary of
nonviolent direct action as a tactic for social
change. After utilizing civil disobedience
for the majority of the movement, SNCC
decided to change its strategy. By the mid-
1960s, SNCC had become more oriented
towards the Black Power ideology in its
goals and tactics. SNCC felt that civil dis
obedience had outgrown its usage because
nonviolence did not raise consciousness at
all times. SNCC, which had several promi
nent white members such as Bob Zellner,
began to move towards all-black member
ship. Stokely Carmichael replaced John
Lewis as chairman in 1966. Carmichael
started out a die-hard pacifist but became
more militant after over 24 arrests for par
ticipation in nonviolent protest. SNCC also
faced internal problems over leadership.
SNCC never wanted its leaders to become
too powerful because that might dilute the
strength of apeq>le’s movement Bob Moses
changed his name to Robert Parrish be
cause he thought SNCC members treated
him as a prophet figure. SNCC also discov
ered that the FBI had infiltrated the organi
zation because it had become so powerful in
themovementBy 1969,SNCC’sinfluence
was in decline in the South. SNCC was
never able to articulate and utilize Black
Power, the way it had articulated civil dis
obedience. By the early 1970s, the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was
defunct. The organization that had do so
much for black people in barely a decade
was no longer in existence.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee served as a vital force during the
struggle for black equality. Black history is
lacking in something if it doesn’t explain
SNCC’s role in the civil rights movement
Behind the scenes, SNCC died for the bal
lot Behind the scenes, SNCC walked the
hot, dusty roads in the Deep South. Behind
the scenes, SNCC dedicated its life to the
uplift of black people. No other group did so
much and received so little credit. They
were beaten, brutalized and killed for a
cause. SNCC was filled with dreamers;
young people who believed in the power of
the franchise. And yet nobody knows their
names.
All African-Americans should know
their history—and not just the history placed
before you. Question history and its por
trayal of black people. Don’t accept every
thing in history books as true. Read, re
search and remember the history of black
people. Don’t let “his story” become your
story. White history has downplayed the
role of SNCC in the civil rights movement.
African-American students should look at
SNCC for inspiration and encouragement
as they struggle to overcome institutional
racism at colleges and universities nation
wide.